.TH SU 1 "July 2014" "util-linux" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
su \- run a command with substitute user and group ID
.SH SYNOPSIS
.BR su " [options] [" \- ]
.RI [ user " [" argument ...]]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B su
allows to run commands with a substitute user and group ID.
.PP
When called without arguments,
.B su
defaults to running an interactive shell as
.IR root .
.PP
For backward compatibility,
.B su
defaults to not change the current directory and to only set the
environment variables
.B HOME
and
.B SHELL
(plus
.B USER
and
.B LOGNAME
if the target
.I user
is not root). It is recommended to always use the
.B \-\-login
option (instead of its shortcut
.BR \- )
to avoid side effects caused by mixing environments.
.PP
This version of
.B su
uses PAM for authentication, account and session management. Some
configuration options found in other
.B su
implementations, such as support for a wheel group, have to be
configured via PAM.
.PP
.B su
is mostly designed for unprivileged users, the recommended solution for
privileged users (e.g. scripts executed by root) is to use
non-set-user-ID command
.BR runuser (1)
that does not require authentication and provide separate PAM configuration. If
the PAM session is not required at all then the recommend solution is to use
command
.BR setpriv (1).
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.BR \-c , " \-\-command" = \fIcommand
Pass
.I command
to the shell with the
.B \-c
option.
.TP
.BR \-f , " \-\-fast"
Pass
.B \-f
to the shell, which may or may not be useful, depending on the shell.
.TP
.BR \-g , " \-\-group" = \fIgroup
Specify the primary group. This option is available to the root user only.
.TP
.BR \-G , " \-\-supp\-group" = \fIgroup
Specify a supplemental group. This option is available to the root user only. The first specified
supplementary group is also used as a primary group if the option \fB\-\-group\fR is unspecified.
.TP
.BR \- , " \-l" , " \-\-login"
Start the shell as a login shell with an environment similar to a real
login:
.RS 10
.TP
o
clears all the environment variables except
.B TERM
and variables specified by \fB\-\-whitelist\-environment\fR
.TP
o
initializes the environment variables
.BR HOME ,
.BR SHELL ,
.BR USER ,
.BR LOGNAME ", and"
.B PATH
.TP
o
changes to the target user's home directory
.TP
o
sets argv[0] of the shell to
.RB ' \- '
in order to make the shell a login shell
.RE
.TP
.BR \-m , " \-p" , " \-\-preserve\-environment"
Preserve the entire environment, i.e. it does not set
.BR HOME ,
.BR SHELL ,
.B USER
nor
.BR LOGNAME .
This option is ignored if the option \fB\-\-login\fR is specified.
.TP
.BR \-P , " \-\-pty"
Create pseudo-terminal for the session. The independent terminal provides
better security as user does not share terminal with the original
session. This allow to avoid TIOCSTI ioctl terminal injection and another
security attacks against terminal file descriptors. The all session is also
possible to move to background (e.g. "su --pty - username -c
application &"). If the pseudo-terminal is enabled then su command works
as a proxy between the sessions (copy stdin and stdout).
.sp
This feature is mostly designed for interactive sessions. If the standard input
is not a terminal, but for example pipe (e.g. echo "date" | su --pty) than ECHO
flag for the pseudo-terminal is disabled to avoid messy output.
.TP
.BR \-s , " \-\-shell" = \fIshell
Run the specified \fIshell\fR instead of the default. The shell to run is
selected according to the following rules, in order:
.RS 10
.TP
o
the shell specified with
.B \-\-shell
.TP
o
the shell specified in the environment variable
.BR SHELL ,
if the
.B \-\-preserve\-environment
option is used
.TP
o
the shell listed in the passwd entry of the target user
.TP
o
/bin/sh
.RE
.IP
If the target user has a restricted shell (i.e. not listed in
/etc/shells), the
.B \-\-shell
option and the
.B SHELL
environment variables are ignored unless the calling user is root.
.TP
.BI \-\-session\-command= command
Same as
.B \-c
but do not create a new session. (Discouraged.)
.TP
.BR \-w , " \-\-whitelist\-environment" = \fIlist
Don't reset environment variables specified in comma separated \fIlist\fR when clears
environment for \fB\-\-login\fR. The whitelist is ignored for the environment variables
.BR HOME ,
.BR SHELL ,
.BR USER ,
.BR LOGNAME ", and"
.BR PATH "."
.TP
.BR \-V , " \-\-version"
Display version information and exit.
.TP
.BR \-h , " \-\-help"
Display help text and exit.
.SH SIGNALS
Upon receiving either
.BR SIGINT ,
.B SIGQUIT
or
.BR SIGTERM ,
.B su
terminates its child and afterwards terminates itself with the received signal.
The child is terminated by SIGTERM, after unsuccessful attempt and 2 seconds of
delay the child is killed by SIGKILL.
.SH CONFIG FILES
.B su
reads the
.I /etc/default/su
and
.I /etc/login.defs
configuration files. The following configuration items are relevant
for
.BR su (1):
.PP
.B FAIL_DELAY
(number)
.RS 4
Delay in seconds in case of an authentication failure. The number must be
a non-negative integer.
.RE
.PP
.B ENV_PATH
(string)
.RS 4
Defines the PATH environment variable for a regular user. The
default value is
.IR /usr/local/bin:\:/bin:\:/usr/bin .
.RE
.PP
.B ENV_ROOTPATH
(string)
.br
.B ENV_SUPATH
(string)
.RS 4
Defines the PATH environment variable for root. ENV_SUPATH takes precedence. The default value is
.IR /usr/local/sbin:\:/usr/local/bin:\:/sbin:\:/bin:\:/usr/sbin:\:/usr/bin .
.RE
.PP
.B ALWAYS_SET_PATH
(boolean)
.RS 4
If set to
.I yes
and \-\-login and \-\-preserve\-environment were not specified
.B su
initializes
.BR PATH .
.RE
.sp
The environment variable PATH may be different on systems where /bin and /sbin
are merged into /usr.
.SH EXIT STATUS
.B su
normally returns the exit status of the command it executed. If the
command was killed by a signal,
.B su
returns the number of the signal plus 128.
.PP
Exit status generated by
.B su
itself:
.RS 10
.TP
1
Generic error before executing the requested command
.TP
126
The requested command could not be executed
.TP
127
The requested command was not found
.RE
.SH FILES
.PD 0
.TP 17
/etc/pam.d/su
default PAM configuration file
.TP
/etc/pam.d/su-l
PAM configuration file if \-\-login is specified
.TP
/etc/default/su
command specific logindef config file
.TP
/etc/login.defs
global logindef config file
.PD 1
.SH NOTES
For security reasons
.B su
always logs failed log-in attempts to the btmp file, but it does not write to
the lastlog file at all. This solution allows to control
.B su
behavior by PAM configuration. If you want to use the pam_lastlog module to
print warning message about failed log-in attempts then the pam_lastlog has to
be configured to update the lastlog file as well. For example by:
.RS
.br
session required pam_lastlog.so nowtmp
.RE
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR setpriv (1),
.BR login.defs (5),
.BR shells (5),
.BR pam (8),
.BR runuser (8)
.SH HISTORY
This \fBsu\fR command was
derived from coreutils' \fBsu\fR, which was based on an implementation by
David MacKenzie. The util-linux has been refactored by Karel Zak.
.SH AVAILABILITY
The su command is part of the util-linux package and is
available from
.UR https://\:www.kernel.org\:/pub\:/linux\:/utils\:/util-linux/
Linux Kernel Archive
.UE .
